Katharyne
by Rhiannonymous
Summary: Spin off from the spin off of Being human. Meet a few characters whom you've never heard of or their species
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Half past 3 on the grounds of Rathbourne High School is a very difficult place to be. Humans, with their short lives and unfulfilling dreams are always so hasty. Rushing here and there, to and fro, place to place has always got to be rushed. The children leaving the school in such a mad rush to get anywhere usually bring headaches to her. As if she needed anymore.

Katharyne Roth leaned cautiously against the school gates, keeping herself open to run if anyone tried to ambush her with well, anything. She had to concentrate. The voices, her voices were being unusually far and few between and quiet today. She brought her hands to her temples and started to massage them in a clockwise direction. Despite this being one of her very few moments of some slight peace, she knew it wouldn't last. An earthquake was due somewhere in the Philippine Sea and she had to keep as calm as possible before it hits. She didn't want to lash out at anyone. She didn't need another voice in her head to scream at her, let alone one that she caused.

76,053 people. Every one of them about to die. She sees their faces. She feels their horror, everyone of those people, she can sense and everyone of their body clocks, mere hours, minutes, some even a few seconds to live. Suddenly, it hit. She clasped her head between her hands, tears streaming down her eyes, her mouth open and closing like a fish, teeth bared, she dropped to the ground. Her stomach convulsed as, in her head, in the very depths of her heart and soul hundreds of people every second flooded in, knocking down any weak mental barriers she had dared to hope would work. Their eyes, their wails and screams as they made their last death throws for life. Mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandmothers and grandparents all screaming, all trying to beat back their fate, all inside of her head, screaming in unison.

Her condition shows no mercy, it never has. As every second, hundreds of people pour into her head. Time had no meaning to her. The pain of every one of those people that she felt would be enough to paralyse any single person who felt it and drive them so mad, they'd think they were in paradise. The obvious way to stop all of this would be to knock yourself out during this terrible ordeal. But the very genes in her body prevent her from slacking out and gives her no mercy. Her trait is unrelenting, it ensures that it drags on, pulls her through, makes her listen to individual cries and yet to all of them at once. Time has no meaning like this. So it wasn't surprising that she found herself stuffed some time later in some sort of skip, in the middle of the night, with absolutely no concept of when or even where she was.

Katharyne's eyelids quivered, however not out of sleep. It was never out of sleep. Almost directly above her, a waning crescent moon finally managed to peak through the thick clouds that were on the move. The wind was picking up. Katharyne could feel the temperatures dropping Celsius by Celsius towards zero and knew by instinct she had to move. Despite knowing this, she still kept absolutely still. Her head hadn't stopped spinning and heart has yet to slow down a beat. She knew after many decades of experience and instinct that she couldn't risk being exposed like this. Even the slightest of injuries or illnesses that could receive in this cold, alongside her current condition would be enough to make her an extremely dangerous person to be within sight of. Yet she still couldn't move. Like many times before, she felt like giving up, like she couldn't go on. But like many times before, when she tried, it gave her wave after wave of unbearable and excruciating agony. She had no choice. She had never had a choice.

Gritting her teeth and forcing herself to keep calm, she at last opened her eyes and sat up. The dim, almost inhuman world she saw around her lit up only by a single crescent moon, only remotely piqued her interest. She knew this place was still within the boundaries of the human world and she had seen similar place before. She squinted and peered through slit eyelids at the world around her. As far as light would allow, Katharyne saw she was in some kind of back alleyway, hidden from view behind a row of short, squat houses. There wasn't a single road sign nor landmark in sight. She cursed the people who kidnapped her. It wasn't the first time it had happened before, but when it does, it leave her fuming. Over time, the sick joke never ceasing to annoy her.

Suddenly and without any warning, there was a white flash that blinded her. Seconds later, her sight restored, she whipped her head around furiously, teeth bared. She found the perpetrator. A tall, skinny boy with mousy coloured hair, naturally spiky, stood approximately 2 metres from her left. He was holding a digital camera, inspecting the picture as it was loading onto the screen. This boy creeped her out. Not only was he able to impossibly sneak up on her, she was also disturbed and puzzled as to why he was walking about in the dead of the night, on his own, with a camera.

"So what's this supposed to be? Your night job?" she spoke with a guttural voice, through clenched teeth and hands balled up into fists. The boy looked up sharply, with a stunned look on his baby-shaped face. By the looks of him, he seemed to only be about 13 years old. This was going to be easier than she thought. With ease and with decades of training behind her, she expertly pushed herself up off the rubbish bags, placed her hands on the edge of the skip and flipped 180 degrees onto the ground. She stood very still, taking even deep breaths. She had to keep her composure. Sure she wanted to get back at the boy, but a dead body on her hands would bring trouble.

Slowly she turned to face the boy and caught his gaze straight on with eyes the colour of turquoise. He flinched, as all people did. No one could properly look into her eyes without reacting in some way other than normal. It was a trait she took a lot of pride in. Yet deep down, although too stubborn to admit it, it makes her feel extremely isolated. And alone. She took a step towards the boy who by now, was locked into place. He was terrified by the hollowness, the blackest of blackness that seems to emanate from her pupils. She couldn't help herself. This time she was actually going to have _fun_. "I can calculate," she said, her voice suddenly taking on a devilishly charming tone, "It would take 5 steps and therefore 2 seconds to walk straight from here," pointing at her feet, "To you." She slowly placed her right foot behind her and bent her knees slightly, all the time never relenting her gaze from him. "and less than half the time," she continued, "to jump you. Now if you were clever, which indeed i'm sure, somehow, you are, you'd give me your little machine there and run home, not saying a word. Fast." The boy took a second to recollect his thoughts before he flung the camera upwards and ran away shrieking.

She caught the camera in one hand and straightened up. All was silent. A loud chortle broke the peace as she whipped around to face the new stranger. Oh, as if she needed to see _another_ weirdo right now, she thought as she caught sight of him half, swaggering and all smirking towards her.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The new stranger took his time, coming towards her. It moved with absolute certainty and grace that Katharyne had only ever seen a few times before in her long life. It means experience. It means confidence. It means trouble. She braced herself, peering into the distance as the silhouette slowly grew to normal size. Every step closer to her, her muscles tensed up a notch. Again there was another throaty chortle, this time a lot quieter and deeper, as if he, for his presence seemed most predominantly male, was laughing to himself. Laughing in the presence of her? It had only twice ever been done. Despite perhaps not being as strong as the werewolf, nor being as long-lived as the vampire, she would have been able to beat them all. Even perhaps, an elder. But this, _this_, was something new.

Her heart beat quickened. Despite all her years of training, she _knew_ she should never allow her pulse to rise. Yet for the first time in many decades, she was now scared. Out of the corner of her eyes, she searched the rows of back-garden fences, looking in vain to see if there were any loose planks to use as a weapon. The creep came ever closer. By now, Katharyne could roughly make out his features, dark brown/mahogany coloured hair which sat in disarray on top of a fair skinned and angular head. He was tall, but not overwhelmingly so, merely half a head taller than her and he had a slightly lean build, not quite athletic, that compromised his angular jaw. Finally as he edged nearer, she could finally take a glimpse of his eyes and her mind immediately recoiled back in surprise. The right one, a deep reddish brown with flecks of black. The other, a dazzling azure blue.

Too tensed to keep her composure any longer, she broke the silence. "Who the hell are you?" She was amazed at herself for keeping her fear out of her voice, despite her head telling yelling at her to flee. He took a couple more steps forward, gradually slowing down into a stop, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jeans and his legs slightly apart than normal, in a confident stance. He smirked, tipped his head towards the ground and shook his head lightly. He must get this all the time, she thought, jaw locked tight. She has seldom ever been laughed at but yet has never been comfortable when she is. To her mind it shows weakness.

He straightened up again, the light humour still obvious in his eyes. Finally, he spoke. "I would have thought better of you." His slightly rasping, throaty voice indicated to Katharyne that it had only recently broken. "I mean being all alone and misunderstood and all that, I would have thought you were not the type to be so common." Katharyne gritted her teeth even tighter at this statement, not replying. It was now his turn to break the silence. "But in the end, I guess the only the person who could _really _claim to be a solo act, is me." He made little gesture somewhat like jazz hands before thrusting them back into his pockets again.

"Who. Are. You?" Anger was now rising deep inside her. She was ready for a fight there and then, waiting for him to lunge at her. Yet all this fool was doing was wasting her time. If there was going to be a fight, might as well get it done quickly. He rocked forwards and backwards on his feet, trying very badly to keep in his amusement. "I am the impossible entity" he said at long last, still smirking. He continued, pronouncing every syllable slowly and carefully. "I. Am the Hybrid."

"You're completely nuts," Katharyne retorted. "There can never _be _a hybrid let alone a crummy, insignificant little nitwit."

"Oh but I'm _the _Hybrid," his eyes widening momentarily at the word the.

"No," Katharyne replied with a dangerous edge to her voice, "It's not possible."

He slowly started walking to her again, step by step until he was right in front of her, toes merely an inch apart. He stood erectly before bending forward towards her. Katharyne stood absolutely motionless, frozen into place, mind transfixed. His cheek brushed slightly against hers as he turned his head to whisper in her ear. "Want to bet your life?" he whispered in hushed tones, challenging her to disagree.

Katharyne, absolutely rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. She wasn't entirely sure what was wrong with her, but all the while, she was now hyper-sensitive to the smallest of movements that he made. He slowly pulled away, his eyes travelling casually around her body before landing back on her face, a smirk forming on his lips once again. He finally stepped back and turned around very slowly, walking away, all the while keeping his eyes on hers until the very last possible second when he turned his head around and stalked off. All the while her eyes were still locked straight in front of her long after he had left, her mind playing and replaying over and over again what had just happened. After a few minutes, she started to shiver. Realising she was outside and still with absolutely no idea of where she was, she broke her gaze and ran in the opposite direction down the alley, to which he had come.

The bleak yellow light of the lamppost 06 flickered slightly. It had always been constantly flicking for the past 3 months. Yet the kind of people living down Fortune Green Lane are not the type of people who would really be bothered to do much about it. Everything was still and quiet. The wind was not moving and there had been no parties taking place down that road tonight. The dull-coloured budget flats lined up row by row were unusually quiet.

From down the road, there came a faint tapping sound, quite fast, that grew loader every second. Soon it turned into a thud as a single figure burst into the bleak pools of light that were emitted from the flickering street lamp. The figure suddenly stopped, looked around and finally, as if all its strength had gone, leaned against the post, taking quick, deep breaths.

Katharyne let out several breaths of relief as she leant on the flickering lamppost, not caring of how it bothers her eyes. She had been running almost constantly for about 10 minutes before she found a familiar road to find her way and, despite this being one of her most detested places of all in the area, she was glad to finally be in reach of home. She pushed herself off the lamppost and went at a steady jog towards her flat. When she had reached the eighth down the road, she slowed down and turned left down the pathway towards the entrance. She fumbled in her pockets for a few seconds before taking out a set of keys, all hung from a single metal ring. There was not a single key ring in sight. She picked one key, let the others drop and rammed it in the keyhole before starting the arduous task of actually getting it to open. When it finally did, she pulled it out with brute force and ran upstairs not stopping until she had reached the fourth floor, in which she pulled out another key and opened her front door. She slammed it shut behind her turned on the lights and stood in silence. Her mind was racing despite herself. She couldn't help it. In her mind, she went over it, again and again and it just didn't add up. _He_ didn't add up. A vampire Werewolf hybrid has never been able to live, their genes, their species always constantly fighting each other, the victim suffering intense agony as their own body fights itself. Some notorious and exceptionally cruel people have tried all ways, Lucas, Mary, Wyndham; all of them tried the different combinations of scratch first or bite first or being hereditary but none of the combinations work. Each time, their victims die in inscrutable pain. So how this boy, who just happened to be able to stroll up to her all smiling and grinning like an idiot manages to exist, puzzles her even more. Of course there was always the possibility that he was just lying. But that swagger, that absolute confidence and certainty in his voice would very rarely ever come from someone who was just as common as the next in your species. She cursed aloud. Just as she thought she had the world figured out in her long life, it had to go and muck up everything for her again. Sighing deeply once more, she walked into the kitchen and turned the kettle on. For the rest of the night, she was determined to not let him and his apparent weirdness get in the way of her half-normal life. She looked in her bag and fished out some homework of sorts to occupy her racing mind.

Katharyne slammed her pen down on the table's wooden surface in frustration and took her head in her hands, sighing deeply. The work was boring her to death and was not keeping her away from her roaming thoughts. She let out a small breath as she felt someone looming on the edges of her mind, feeling very sorry. She shuffled into a comfortable position in her seat, forgetting about her work that laid unfinished on her desk. A Mr K. Peters that lived 6 streets away was going to have a heart attack within the next 5 minutes and she had to keep calm. This was going to a bad one. From his inevitable death, she knew that this man was going to leave behind a lot when he goes. He was only 31 years old, his wife whom he'd been married for 5 years and have adored pretty much non-stop during that time was going to have a baby in 2 to 3 months time. It was going to be named Sam.

2 minutes later, a distinct tapping sound filled the entire room. Katharyne heard or even felt her feet tapping against the table leg. Her body hardly felt like it belonged to her. She sat and waited in anticipation, knowing that at any time, her head will be filled by the thrashings and shouts of protest from the next dead person within miles of her. Although, she thought as to try and keep her mind occupied from the "wait," her condition had never really worked so according to the book. Sometimes, for some strange unknown reason, there are occasions where she had felt people die many hundreds of miles of her, sometimes thousands, as demonstrated from this afternoon's catastrophe. She didn't watch the news. She didn't need to. She knew literally everything she needed to just by listening to their wails. Their desperate, heart-breaking screams.

Suddenly she sat up straight and shook her head violently, trying to distract her mind from thinking about this afternoon. She had to try and stay as mentally balanced as possible, to wait and mourn for the person who she only just recently knew existed. Once she felt someone's life clock edge closer to zero, especially someone she's not anywhere near to, she knows that they will soon die. And there'll be no question about it.

She gripped the sides of the table, her hands quickly turning white under the pressure. She knew he was coming soon, just like anybody else known when they are mere seconds from puking up. She breathed in sharply as she felt K. Peters fill her brain. Her feet curled inwards, her abdomen contracted till it hurt as she listened over and over again to his long wails and protests, shouting for his wife, his family, his unborn son that broke what little peace of mind she could cling on to. Over and over again, she listened and mourned and apologised for his fate. Yet he could not hear her. Finally he died down and slipped away from her brain. She lay there still motionless, sweat rimming her forehead. Slowly she sat up, careful as to make sure she does not fall dizzy and looked at the watch that wrapped round her left arm. 2:37. He had lasted for over 4 minutes, far longer than most other individual people had taken. She swore very loudly, not caring if the family below her heard her. It wasn't the people that flooded her brain that frustrated her to madness, nor was it the completely random and humiliating times that they sometimes struck. It was mainly her incapability to do _anything_ while she is drowned out. Her condition claims her, holds her down and strangles her every time. Yet she is made to gag herself, stop her from screaming. She refuses at all costs to be stopped.

She stood up and wiped her forehead with a black sleeve and crept towards her bathroom. Leaning on the sink with 2 hands, and looked straight into the mirror above it. Vibrant turquoise eyes stared back at her, the pupils of them standing out above all else in an angled face. Her eyes roamed questioningly around her face. Fine black hair framed and curved around her high cheekbones before waving downwards, past her jaw and stopping about 4 inches below her shoulders. Her well-curved lips parted slightly as she came closer to the mirror, eyes widening, as if looking for something in them. She pulled back and looked at the stranger in the mirror, just as the stranger stared quizzically back at her, wondering as always, what the original was going to do.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Katharyne's eyes snapped open. She lay in her bed, waiting for her mind to catch up to an ever-puzzling reality. She seldom ever sleeps for more than 3 hours at a time, and last night was no exception. With as little effort as possible she heaved herself up and searched for time. She groaned inwardly. 6:27am. She had over an hour to kill before she could even start getting ready. As her mind slowly clicked back into place, she realised there was something she missed. Something she could almost touch and see but yet a feeling so unfamiliar. With a sudden jolt, she realised she had _dreamed._

She let out a short, sharp giggle raised her hands to her burning cheeks. She sat on her bed trying to contain her laughter as she mused over what her dream could possibly be about. All she knew, judging by her struggle to contain fits of embarrassed laughter, was that it had been a good one. Finally making her way to the kitchen, feeling surprisingly light-headed, she started the task of getting ready, very slowly, feeling more like a schoolgirl than she has ever felt for decades.

7:25. She couldn't wait any longer. She had to have _something_ to keep her mind occupied by anything other than the screaming. Despite the school's gates not opening for another 45 minutes, there was nothing to do to distract her racing mind. Slowly, she got up from her kitchen chair, grabbed her bags and left her flat.

Katharyne was careful with every stair, every step she took, making sure she went as slow as her legs could possibly allow her. The early day air was cold and dry. It clung to her face like a second skin. She vaguely took in what she was wearing, throwing anything on that would keep her remotely warm, each piece as dark and as plain as the next.

With carefully applied steadiness, she rounded the last corner onto the sad and desolate little road on which Rathbourne High sat. Since the incident barely 3 years ago, Rathbourne High has become a source for misery and trouble that appears to expand even beyond its own walls. The school, if it could still be called that now, was on its last legs. To Katharyne, she had seen this happen all too many times before. Something that is built up will always crumble down and it is your choice whether you'd be foolish enough to stay inside to try and hold it up when it does.


End file.
